It is a pleasure for me to be here in Geneva and an honor to deliver this statement at the 66th World Health Assembly. Let me take this opportunity to congratulate you, Mr. President, on your assumption of the Presidency of the Assembly.

In line with the theme of the plenary session of this year’s World Health Assembly, I will focus my statement on the importance of ensuring the place of health in the next generation of global development goals.

As we all know, people’s health, is both a contributor and a beneficiary in the economic progress and overall development of a country. It is, therefore, a matter of rights, responsibility, and common sense for a government to develop and maintain an effective, inclusive, and comprehensive response to the country’s health needs. If high economic growth is to be achieved and sustained with benefits equitably shared by all, health must be a priority concern of a country’s leaders – leaders in government, in legislatures, in civil society, and in the private sector. Adequate human, technical, and financial resources must be made available to ensure the health and well-being of the people. Everyone should benefit from achievement of high levels of public health and everyone should share in the effort to reach that goal.

Traditionally, health has been measured by indicators of disease-related morbidity, mortality, and disability as well as availability of facilities per capita, personnel, and other measures related to the provision of services and effectiveness of the public health system. These historic indicators continue to give us important information about the health of our people and our health system. However, recognition of the strategic place of health in national development, calls for the expansion of our goals and objectives to include attention to people’s well-being, that is the quality of life, not just survival. We need also to develop new indicators to help us monitor progress on both our old tasks and the new. We will need to track effectiveness of public health initiatives in reducing risk, promoting healthy behaviours, and achieving steadily improving health outcomes. In the context of broader development concerns and the partnership necessary to achieve it, we will need new indicators as well. These should aim to help us monitor coordination & collaboration of health efforts as well as some indicators related to well-being by government, civil society, and the private sector.

In 2014 Indonesia will take the initial step in a phased, five year process to improve coverage of health insurance with the target of achieving universal health coverage by 2019. The necessary funds will be provided largely by the national government budget. Providing universal health coverage will ensure that all people have access to comprehensive health services without reference to their financial status. Preventive and promotive measures are being given high importance with an eye to eliminating the costs of avoidable health treatment and care. Moreover, this approach will contribute to improvements in the overall health status and the quality of life of the Indonesian people.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen;

It is an irony of modern times that the prosperity we all seek often brings with it an increase in the morbidity, mortality, and disability associated with non-communicable diseases. Furthermore, rapid urbanization tends to increase mental health challenges and traffic injuries, while life-style changes also increase people’s exposure to a wide range of new health risks. Accelerating environmental pollution in many areas increases risks for us all and changes in rural, peri-urban, and urban employment patterns can also introduce new challenges to daily life.

Communicable diseases and under-nutrition are slowly disappearing as major determinants of poor health, yet they still affect too many people and they are not disappearing quickly enough. AIDS, TB and Malaria continue to have a significant impact on health and quality of life for millions of people and they have changed the demographic profile of the world. We have taken note of recent outbreaks of influenza viruses which could have wide reaching negative impacts on global health. Indonesia is pleased to be taking part in well-coordinated global efforts to find new and effective responses to the threats.

It is my hope that this overview of some of the principle health challenges faced by the global community will remind us of the complexity and importance of our work in this World Health Assembly. It is clear that global development and global health are intimately interrelated. Health levels around the world will influence progress on the global development agenda. Likewise, progress on the global development agenda will contribute to the capacity of the global community to build inclusive, stronger, more effective, more comprehensive health systems. This must be our goal.

Let us work hard. Let us work together. Let us share what we know and combine forces to fill the gaps in our knowledge. Only in this way can we be effective in building technically appropriate, self reliant national and global health systems that will contribute to and benefit from progress on the global family’s overall development agenda.